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She added: “I phoned the CAB to see if they can pull the reins in a bit with their referrals and asked them to only refer people to us if are desperate and in dire straits.

“I was shocked to hear that they had been, and when they told me some of the stories of the poverty they were seeing, I was horrified.

“One advisor told me she’d seen the weight drop from one mother who had stopped eating herself in favour of giving her children a meal.

“Another woman was in tears when she handed over a bank statement that showed she didn’t have a penny to her name, I felt really guilty afterwards.”

Sarah said the government’s crackdown on benefits is to blame, along with people innocently falling foul of benefit rules and being sanctioned, or getting ill while on zero-hour contracts.

She said: “I asked the CAB advisor if I could come in for a meeting inviting some local politicians to see what can be done and to highlight the scale of the problem.

“Ideally, I’d like to speak to someone from the Department of Work and Pensions to ask why the benefits cuts are so severe and immediate.”

Last year, the food bank helped a cash-strapped mum who was so grateful to be given hot water bottles because it meant she didn’t have to put her children to bed with their coats on.

More recent stories of poverty include a man who broke his leg in an accident, but was laid off because he was on a zero-hour contract.

The King’s Storehouse is an arm of the Wellspring Christian Centre, with a large portion of the donations coming from parishioners, local businesses and charities and a trolley at Sainsbury’s.

Sarah said the food bank simply couldn’t exist without them.

“We rely solely on good will and if not for the local people of Rhyl, we’d have nothing to give these people but at this rate, it won’t be long before our stocks are hammered again.”

Vale of Clwyd MP, Chris Ruane said: “There are clearly many problems with the DWP sanctions regime and some of the experiences people have had with the system are appalling.

“I have had a lengthy meeting with Denbighshire CAB a few weeks ago where they relayed their concerns to me regarding the welfare system and I have arranged to visit the Kings Storehouse food bank at the beginning of September.

“People are waiting for far too long for their appeals to be heard, sanctions seem to be applied arbitrarily - giving people little or no chance of being able to abide by the rules and people are being forced into poverty by a system that appears to pay little or no heed to certain circumstances particularly those with mental health issues.

“Here in the Vale of Clwyd we are lucky that there some very community minded organisations who are working extremely hard to help in the welfare of others but if they are being overwhelmed by the volume of people coming to them for assistance the DWP and the government needs to listen and it is something I will be raising in parliament.”

The food bank is short of these items:

Fray Bentos pies

Tinned meat

Tinned potatoes

Tinned vegetables

Spam/ham in a can

Coffee

Tinned fruit

They can be dropped off at Sainsbury’s, Rhyl Football Club on Grange Road or Mace Newsagents on Trellewelyn Road, Rhyl.

* The Lon Las Loonies are doing a 60-mile superheroes ride this Saturday starting and finishing at the Red Lion in Meliden to raise money for The Kings Storehouse.